Superman

Superman (1978)
Director: Richard Donner
Cast: Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Ned Beatty
Memorable Line: "I'm here to fight for truth, and justice, and the American way."

Many times when you reflect on a movie that is a part of a series, you judge it in a relative fashion. With the Superman movies, it's difficult not to fall into that pattern. In separating it from it's predecessors and judging it on it's own merits, you have to acknowledge that "Superman" has its obvious strengths and its obvious weakness. Its strengths lie director with Donner's desire to bring a nobility to the character, but it weakness is when he decides to make the villain overlycartoonish, thus taking away most of his threat and reducing the overall effect of the movie to caricature.

"Superman" begins with the destruction of the plant Krypton and it's inhabitants and the bold plan of one set of parents to send their son off in an escape pod to another planet to survive. That planet is earth. Due to differences between Krypton and earth, Superman is imbued with super powers (although it is beyond me how x-ray vision and heat vision can be derived from the differences). A good portion of the early portion of the film follows the boy Superman until he finally decides to strike out for the big city. It's there that the movie takes off.

Clark Kent (Reeve), Superman's human alter ego, is a reporter for the Daily Planet and it is at the paper where he meets his love interest, Lois Lane (Kidder). As Superman, he begins to use his super powers for good -- stopping crimes, helping people and even rescuing cats from trees. In super hero movies, there seems to be a ying and yang balance, if a super hero appears, then a villain must appear and that's where the film breaks down for me. Lex Luther and his hapless side kick Otis have a master plan that includes dropping California into the Pacific. Hackman does his best with Luther, but the script doesn't do him any favors and Otis is so bumbling that he become obnoxious. I can see where the filmmakers were trying to go, but it seems to work directly against the nobleportrayal of Superman that Donner sets up earlier in the film. It's both distracting and detracting along with being disappointing.

Reeve captures both Clark Kent and Superman. It's astonishing to watch him make the transformation from Kent to Superman in a pivotal scene in the movie. Hackman brings us an over-the-top Lex Luther with great relish. I must say that I've always been mystified by the casting of Kidder as Lois Lane, but she is acquits herself well in the role.

The special effects are good for their time, but some of the miniature work isn't all that convincing. John William's score soars and the Superman theme is timeless.

On the whole, the good far outweighs the bad in the movie, but the low points are so low that it does mar what could have been a fantastic movie. The tagline was that you'll believe a man can fly and there are points at which you certainly do believe.